1. rightness (n) a: accordance with conscience or morality b: appropriate conduct; doing the right thing c: conformity to fact or truth 2. truth (n) a: the state of being the case b: the body of real things, events, and facts

Sunday, July 16, 2006

REGIME TO COMMEMORATE CONTRA-GERÎLA MASSACRE

“Our strength lies in our intensive attacks and our barbarity...After all, who today remembers the genocide of the Armenians?”

~ Adolf Hitler.

The Turkish regime is going to commemorate its own massacre of Kurds, a massacre which occurred in July of 1993, not far from Wan. From The New Anatolian

Bahcesaray Governor Bunyamin Yildiz told the Anatolia news agency that everyone in the district was deeply saddened about the events which occurred on July 18, 1993 and emphasized that the PKK's attack was so brutal that no other terrorist group had managed to do such a thing.

As usual, the governor is wrong. There are terrorists in Turkey who are capable of making such brutal attacks, and they are the Turkish security forces, especially Ozel Timler. At the time, an ERNK spokesman denied the attack:

An unknown force today attacked Kurdish people who were grazing their lifestock in Sunduz Yayla (Sunduz Plateau) in Bahcesary district in Van, killing 23 civilians. Turkish authorities and Anatolian News Agency reported the incident as the doing of the ARGK (Peoples Liberation Army of Kurdistan) guerrillas. We spoke to the Serhat Region Headquarter spokesperson who has denied the Bahcesary-incident at 6:30pm today. The spokesman said: "The people of the Sunduz Plateau had nothing against us and our forces who were aware their existence, had good relations with the people. We had no reason to kill those people. We want to send a message to the press that our forces did not conduct this incident and is not responsible for the killing of these people. We heard that Turkish authorities blame us for the incident. We believe that this incident is a work of the contra-guerrilla which functions under Turkish state control."

Unfortunately, the Bahcesary Massacre was not investigated by international human rights groups, but a similar contra-gerîla operation was, and has been documented by Amnesty International. It has become known as the Guclukonak Massacre. The interesting thing about the Gucuklonak Massacre was that it took place a month after PKK announced one of its many unilateral ceasefires, something to which the Turkish regime did not want to have to make a peaceful response. Instead, they chose to follow the training they had so well received from their US and NATO tutors, and that was to make a violent provocation.

The results of the Gulcukonak Massacre investigating delegation indicated that Turkish security forces committed the massacre. In another instance of history repeating itself, the delegation submitted a request to the Chief State Prosecutor in Istanbul:

". . . accusing Turkey's Chief of General Staff of responsibility for the massacre and of engaging in a cover-up. They made these charges on the basis that on 16 January, on the orders of the General Staff, journalists had been airlifted to the scene where three high-ranking officers had briefed the journalists with a version of events that the delegation believed was manifestly flawed and calculated to mask the real perpetrators."

In a manner similar to what happened to Ferhat Sarikaya, the Wan prosecutor who attempted to indict Buyukanit Pasha for his role in the Semdinli bombing, the regime prosecuted leading members of the investigating delegation and then promptly ignored their findings of the Bahcesary Massacre.

But this is an old story in Turkish-occupied Kurdistan, and history is in the process of repeating itself even though some of us remember it. The act of commemoration of the Bahcesary Massacre, coming as it does now when the regime is renewing its dirty war against the Kurds is an indication of the desperation of the regime in the face of continued Kurdish resistance.

The difference now is that Kurds must watch to see how far the complicity of the EU will go when the Turkish regime commits another Bahcesary or Gulcukonak. Will the EU become more deeply complicit with Turkey in the genocide of Kurds by ignoring or covering up the regime's black operations? After Rice's recent visit to Ankara, it is clear that the US will continue to back the genocide. In both cases, it is up to Kurdish activists in Europe and the US to make a proper response.

HPG gerîlas continue to make a proper response, and with 12 Mehmetcik's iced this past week, I am reminded of the words of US General George S. Patton:

No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.

What percentage of the population is Kurdish? Generally 20%. Therefore we can guess that the TSK will have roughly a 20% population of Kurds. If so, we can further guess that 2 or 3 of these Mehmetciks were Kurds.

What about when gerîlas die? What about when gerîlas who are taken alive--and become, thereby, prisoners of war--are executed in the field? What about when they die by Turkish use of chemical weapons? How many Mehmetciks who are Kurds are using those weapons against Kurds?

What about Korucular? I wrote a long post about Korucular and yet no one seemed too concerned that the Korucular system is the most glaring example of fascists pitting Kurds against Kurds. In the case of Korucular, it isn't only Korucular vs. gerîla; it's Korucular vs. IDPs.

As Anonymous mentions, there is a problem with those who sell themselves for money or selfishness. In other words, for personal gain. Many times this is what the Korucular work for. It may be worse, in this case, if they choose to do it for ideological reasons because the ideology is, by its nature, anti-Kurd.

But perhaps you can take this up with the Ankara regime, and also indicate your support for the conscientious objector movement. The next one to get shafted by the Turkish justice system over that movement happens to be a Kurd.

By the way, Vladimir, in writing the post on 4GW, I was reminded of something else. Where did you stand on PKK's ceasefire? If you are so concerned about Mehmetcik dying, did you support PKK in its peace effort? Or did you stand with one of the many groups who had either of two reactions:

1. "What is PKK doing? They have betrayed us! They should be fighting!"

2. "Hehehe. . . PKK is SOFT . . ."

To remain neutral in the battle against a fire is to side with the fire against the fireman.